"You always think of other people [having heart disease] but you never think it can happen to you."

Bridget Perez of Hudson is the featured speaker at this year's Go Red for Women luncheon. Perez posed for this photo with her youngest child, Michael Joseph, last fall. "Family and faith is what got me through," said Perez of her breast cancer and heart health ordeals.Courtesy Bridget Perez

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- When she steps up to the podium as one of the keynote speakers for this year’s Go Red for Women luncheon today, Bridget Perez of Hudson will have a captive audience for the message she wants to deliver.

Take action when it comes to your health. Be more aware and more proactive.

“I’ve never talked to that big of a crowd,” Perez said earlier this week. “I’m just so excited to bring something good out of all of this.”

“This” is the breast cancer that has consumed her life since she was diagnosed with the disease one year ago.

In the summer of 2011 Perez found a lump in one of her breasts. She was 28.

Because she suspected that she might be pregnant, Perez opted out of a mammogram, instead getting an ultrasound, which detected a benign cyst. Her doctor decided to keep a close watch on her. Throughout the pregnancy the cyst didn’t change in size or shape.

On May 18, 2012, Perez and her husband Daniel became parents to Michael Joseph. Eight months later Perez had a follow-up ultrasound. This time, something had changed.

In early 2013, right before her 30th birthday, Perez was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.

Perez became a patient at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center. She had pre-operative chemotherapy, followed by a double mastectomy and eight rounds of chemoradiotherapy.

Never once – not even when she signed forms telling her that she understood that the first chemotherapy, adriamycin, could potentially weaken the heart - did any worries about heart disease cross her mind.

“I never even thought that way,” said Perez, 31, “You get through the treatments and you’re done.

View full sizeMore than 1,000 people are expected to attend this year's Go Red for Women luncheon, which raises awareness and money to combat cardiovascular disease. Last year's event raised $847,000Jason Miller

“You always think of other people [having heart disease] but you never think it can happen to you,” she said. “I think of an older man when I think of someone having a heart attack.”

A couple of months ago, when doctors suggested that she start taking Herceptin as part of her treatment, and when she once again signed the forms about the drug’s risk of heart issues, Perez started to worry.

“I was really hesitant about taking another drug,” she said. “What else was I going to put in my body?”

It’s not just Herceptin (which comes with the warning of cardiomyopathy, or diseases of the heart muscle) that breast cancer patients must be aware of. Studies have shown that women who undergo radiation as part of their treatment for breast cancer are at risk for developing heart problems years later.

Before coming to Cleveland, Oliveira worked at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, the site of the world’s first onco-cardiology unit, which opened in 2000.

Oliveira joined the Cleveland Clinic in 2010, where he was part of the launch of that hospital’s Cardio-Oncology Center.

In 2013, when UH recruited Oliveira from the Clinic, he became director of UH’s Advanced Heart Failure & Transplant Center and the leader of the new onco-cardiology program, a collaboration of UH Seidman and UH Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute.

The program, which is housed at UH Seidman, assesses, monitors and treats patients undergoing chemotherapy or chest radiation that may develop cardiac dysfunction.

Unlike today, when every breast cancer patient and every stem cell transplant patient at Seidman must have seen onco-cardio before treatment begins, Perez had already received a few infusions of Herceptin.

An echocardiogram revealed an abnormality. Heart function was good in three parts, but one part was a little lower.

To help prevent further problems, Oliveira prescribed the drug carvedilol, a beta-blocker used to treat patients with heart failure. Around for more than a dozen years, it recently has been recognized as beneficial in helping prevent heart damage in cancer patients.

After just three months on the pill, her function went back to 100 percent, better than it was before her cancer diagnosis.

Dr. Guilherme OliveiraUH

Perez’s treatment is a good example of what blended oncology and cardiology programs are meant to do, Oliveira said.

“The typical knee-jerk reaction is to stop the [therapy],” he said. “But we want to maintain patients on medication until their treatment is completed.”

While blossoming over the past few years, the field is still young, Oliveira said.

“It has started to pop up in select high-level institutions around the country, [but] the field and knowledge base is still very young,” he said.

Perez will continue to take carvedilol until she has completed her treatment of Herceptin and tamoxifen, which she will be on for 10 years. She will then get follow-up echocardiograms.

Oliveira said he hopes that the center will one day expand its presence to UH’s satellites Ahuja Westlake and Chagrin Highlands. And down the line he hopes for an in-patient onco-cardio service to help patients as they are admitted into the hospital. A fellowship program also is in the works to train doctors in the specialty.

Oliveira will share the stage with Perez today at the Go Red for Women event, designed to raise awareness about heart disease in women.

Understandably, he is using his speech to explain the importance of onco-cardiology and the role that cardiologists can play in helping women beat breast cancer.

And for all cancer survivors – especially those treated as children and survivors of blood and bone cancers and breast cancer – his message is for everyone to get their hearts checked as a precaution.

“We know that by 10 years after breast cancer treatment, there is a likelier risk of dying from cardiovascular causes than anything cancer-related,” he said. “I’m convinced that by doing what we’re doing, we’re improving people’s chances of survival.”

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